Outgoing ENO boss speaks out

Paul Daniel, the outgoing music director of English National Opera, has spoken openly for the first time about his fears for the future of the company he has helped run for eight years.

Of ENO's chairman, Martin Smith, he said: "The company's not with him. And I fear the public perception of the company is slightly tainted by him." As well as overseeing redundancies in the opera administration and chorus, Smith's perceived arrogance has earned him unpopularity.

In an exclusive interview for today's Friday Review, Daniel also spoke of his concerns about ENO's artistic director since 2003, Séan Doran. "He needs very strong people within the company to actually run the whole business of putting an opera company together," said Daniel.

Daniel expressed fears about "slimmer seasons" and a "shift to non-company events" such as a cycle of Monteverdi operas that will not use the ENO's permanent orchestra, but hire a period-instrument group; and a proliferation in the Coliseum of non-operatic events. He hinted that such moves could undermine ENO's raison d'etre: as an ensemble company charged with providing accessible, theatrically innovative opera.

Of unfulfilled plans forged in 1997 by the then culture secretary, Chris Smith, to move ENO into the Royal Opera House, he said: "ENO stood for extraordinary theatre and risky music-making. It wasn't going to be shoehorned into a Eurotrash module that people were going to consume at much higher prices."